Volunteers from across the country will be guarding the borders
Rescue team: (Standing, from left) Harsh Bhatnagar, Rahul Singh and AnanthRobert; (sitting)Himanshu Mittal, Shravani Yamsani, Vibhuti Jain, Satish Reddy
Hyderabad: Temperatures along the Indo-Nepal border are falling with each passing day. Fighting these low temperatures is a group of volunteers from various animal organisations across the country, including Hyderabad. All of them are fighting for one cause to stop the slaughter of lakhs of animals in Nepal.
“Every five years, in the Bara district of Nepal near the Indo-Nepal border, a month long festival, Gadhimai, takes place. It is infamous for having the second largest number of animal sacrifices across the world,” says Satish Reddy, Founder of Animal Rescue Team of India, and the Managing Director of OraTrain Technologies. He will be leaving for the Indo-Nepal border to help animals that are being exported.
Gadhimai takes place once in five years and this time, the festival falls on November 28. “There are many organisations coming together, so when we heard of this initiative, a few of us from different organisations in the city got together and we will be going to help the animals,” adds Ananth Robert a volunteer with ARTI, who worked in a private company and who is now in the process of going abroad for studying further.
As part of the plan, teams will meet at Patna, where they will be divided into groups and they will also be given a stretch of 100-150 km to patrol on the Indo-Nepal border. Satish says, “Each group will patrol the border in their own vehicles.
If the volunteers find people taking two or three animals across the border, they will counsel them, but if they find trucks of animals, they will call for back-up and will get the animals to a safer place.” Satish adds that there will be police as well, but the groups will have to be careful as “a few villagers could also put up a fight”.
According to Indian law, it is illegal to sacrifice animals, so the authorities in the area have also assigned police personnel to help the volunteers. Ananth says, “The animals are slaughtered by people who don’t know how to do it. So, not only are the animals being killed, but they die a torturous death.”
Six people are going from the city. While four are from the animal organisation Animal Rescue Team of India, two employees are from the group People for Animals (PFA).
( Source : dc )
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